I am pleased to see that Nouriel Roubini makes this list. He is famous for predicting the Great Recession. But if you always predict bad things, then you are certain to be correct when they happen–and equally certain to be incorrect the rest of the time.

Pointer from Scott Sumner.

For what it’s worth, I increased my exposure to the market late in 2008 and early 2009. But these days I am happy to have a very low-beta portfolio, in which my participation in the ups and downs of the market is small. For every 10 percentage points the stock market goes up, my portfolio gains about 2 percentage points. I am more weighted toward real estate and commodities (oil, not gold), as befits my fear that the next decade might unleash considerable inflation.

One phenomenon I am not bearish about is the sequester. My guess is that its adverse effects on the economy will not be visible to the naked eye, which will observe a rebounding economy. The sequester’s adverse effects can only be seen through the lens of a Keynesian macroeconomic model. Such models always include government spending multipliers of about 1.5 (or 1.57). However, a forecaster might have been better served by assuming a negative multiplier.

[UPDATE: The employment figures for February were relatively positive. Even if you take a conventionally Keynesian view of aggregate demand, you should be quite bullish. Whatever negative impacts of “austerity” have been more than offset by the positive surprises in the stock market and home prices.]